Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 21 February 2007
21 February 2007
The Diary has often been critical of Town's subscription web service Mariners World - usually because its interviews sound like they've been recorded in a wind tunnel populated by a particularly irritable assembly of banshees and werewolves, using a £1.99 Mad Harry's electric toothbrush instead of a microphone. If you're on MW, though, you'll be getting value for money today from the Martin Paterson and Alan Buckley interviews conducted after last night's thrilling win over Wrexham. Both interviewees allow themselves a wry smile at the fortunes of Ciaran Toner, who laid the visitors' opening goal on a lovingly heated plate before finishing brilliantly for Town's 109th-minute winner, and there's an entertaining difference of opinion on whether Paterson will now enjoy more first-team football back in Staffordshire (MP: "I'm going back to Stoke to get into the team... I should be involved... this is just the start of my season." AB: "No."). "It's a shame he's had to go back," laments Lord Buckley, perhaps glancing testily in the direction of the GTFC admin department.
Supporting your football club these days, of course, is as much about buying shirts and fizzy drinks as it is about going to matches and clapping and shouting and stuff. The former pretty much leaves the Diary cold - at least until Willy's brewery comes on board with the 'buy a player' promotion - but those with greater wherewithal will be interested to learn firstly of an official 'Be Town's The 12th Town Man The' T-shirt for sale (price: £4.99/print run: 250/source of story: Grimsby Telegraph) and secondly that GTFC whipped Paterson's shirt off his back in record time last night and are already 14 hours into an eBay auction for the item (current high bid: £102). A visitors' guide to Macclesfield has also appeared on the club's official website for supporters who will this weekend be favouring the time-honoured, traditional pursuits of travelling to a match and cramming their gullets full of appalling fast food.
"As a daily reader of the Diary, I am shocked and slightly confused," writes Ken Andrews in an email to the Diary. Don't worry, Ken - as a daily reader of Town's official website, the Diary is shocked and severely confused. "Are you OK with an ill-informed, shortsighted, selfish, ignoramus with a dodgy knee enjoying your work?" Ah, so this is either about the road pricing petition or last night's referee, then. "Taxation dressed up as concern for the environment? Fuck off and get real. By the way, Santa Claus isn't real." Get out of it, man. Next thing you'll be telling me Mighty Mariner is just a bloke in a foam suit and the pornographer-owned Daily Express really does stand for family values.
Next up in the old inbox is Martyn Wyburn, whose recent debut article for this site the Diary enjoyed immensely. "Surely the only reason Sir Macca of Dermott has not already got an OBE or whatever is because he plays for an unfashionable fourth division club," he writes. "If someone had racked up the same number of games for Liverpool or Man U they'd have been knighted long ago. Thanks for posting the link to the petition; I'm amazed it doesn't have more names on it. But let's face it, the whole honours system is crap. There, I feel better now I've got that off my chest." Indeed, Martyn, and the Diary should perhaps stress that support for the campaign to make Sir Mac a Member of the British Empire should not be taken as endorsement of either historical British imperialism or the ongoing existence of the monarchy.
John Pakey brings today's proceedings to a close by taking up the same subject. "Now, we all recognise the great man's achievements - my own family to the point of naming a dog after him - but as much as this online petition is getting some people on board, I really think we need to start pressurising the media to get a campaign going? Someone tacky like Soccer AM, or something like that? We need to get a cult or something going. Get a petition round at away grounds? I think it will be disgusting if the greater public outside of Grimsby don't realise what a legend this man is. John Ide is right: lesser people have picked up awards and titles." Perhaps so, JP, and readers are welcome to continue emailing diary@codalmighty.com as a sounding board for Macca MBE-type suggestions, though the Diary stresses strongly that support for the campaign to make Sir Mac a Member of the British Empire should certainly not be taken as endorsement of Soccer AM.